Social Life on the Farm. 



A paper read by Mrs. J. E. Middauqii of Belmont, N. Y., at the Cuba Institute. 



It is better to be born lucky than rich ; then you will likely be 

 both. To know how to enjoy life, to rejoice and be glad, is a 

 well-spring of pleasure and nature's own riches. Happy people 

 are, I think, like poets, born, not made. If you are one of these 

 happily-constituted people there is plenty to see and to do, and 

 even a country neighborhood is never dull. If there is a wedding, 

 you think the bride looks lovely, and you hope she will see her 

 golden wedding. If a man dies, you stand with his children 

 around his grave and hear with them the thud of the first earth 

 on his coffin. If a child is born, you say pleasant things. With 

 the school children you go out in the lovely fields, set tables under 

 the trees and have a picnic. In a grassy nook in the forest you 

 build a fire and cook a gipsy dinner to the delight of your guests 

 from town. They also enjoy a visit to the maple-sugar camp in 

 the spring. You keep Arbor Day and pass a subscription on which 

 men sign the number of trees they will bring and set out on the 

 school grounds, and you soon have a grove of young elms and 

 maples. " A thing of beauty is a joy forever; " and children will 

 play in their shade and birds sing in their branches. 



You see horses that have plowed many fields and drawn many 

 heavy loads, gentle and patient workers, kind and faithful servants, 

 eventually the slaves of cruel men. You enlist the children and 

 form a band of mercy. You hear a neighbor woman is very ill. 

 You sit by her bed in the silent night and, although she talks 

 with you, you know she will soon cross the dark river. You meet 

 the children Sunday morning and recite with them " Though I 

 walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no 

 evil." You get up a drama with recitations and music and have a 

 school exhibition. You see poor Fatima with the stolen keys, at 

 the feet of Bluebeard, and have a tableau party. One evening 

 in the week you read history and biography, discuss questions ant* 

 have a lyceuni. The questions are not all political. The children 

 help you decide if the crow ought to be killed for pulling up the 

 corn, or if he does more good than harm in his long life, and 



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